How to Connect Home Speakers to a Car Stereo

by William Kinsey

Home speakers are easily used in a car. The biggest differences between car speakers and home speakers are speaker impedance and speaker construction material. Home speakers usually have a minimum speaker impedance of eight ohms while car speakers can go as low as one ohm. Car speakers are also built stronger than home speakers. This is because car speakers encounter higher temperatures, more vibrations and more abuse than home speakers. Connecting home speakers to a car system requires only a few things.

Open the trunk and disconnect one pair of speaker wires from the existing automotive speakers. Note which wire is positive and negative when removing these wires.

Look at the home speaker. Notice the type of connection that it has. If the home speaker still has speaker wire attached to it, then simply connect the positive home speaker wire to the positive automobile speaker wire. Then connect the negative home speaker wire to the negative automobile speaker wire. Repeat this process for each home speaker added. If the home speaker has RCA plugs, then go to step 3.

Plug an RCA plug into the home speaker. Cut the other RCA plug from the RCA cable. Strip 1/2 of an inch of insulation from the two wires coming from the RCA plug. Connect the positive RCA plug wire to the positive automobile speaker wire. Then connect the negative RCA plug wire to the negative automobile speaker wire. Repeat this process for each home speaker added.

Turn on the system and listen to the sound coming out of each speaker to verify everything is working.

Items you will need

References

About the Author

William Kinsey lives in Concord, N.C. He started writing articles in March 2009, which have appeared on Autos.com and CarsDirect.com. He currently holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. He also has several years experience as an outside plant engineer and planner with AT&T. He also currently owns and operates Sophisticated Curves, an online fashion mall that caters to the needs of plus size women.